


Never had a bastard like me

by judoflip



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Second year, hinata & tsukki is only discussed, kageyama was hinata’s first partner and hinata was kageyama’s first friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27212569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/judoflip/pseuds/judoflip
Summary: Kageyama’s brain produces a Thought in the vicinity of Hinata. Fatal mistake: Hinata steals it and Shouyoufies it.-----------------“What are you saying? If you wanted to have met sooner then you shouldn’t have sucked at volleyball.” Which makes no sense (granted the bar is low for these two), but Kageyama is still mad at him about that sometimes. “Idiot.”
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Kageyama Tobio, Hinata Shouyou & Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 7
Kudos: 26





	Never had a bastard like me

There’s something sweet about the sun setting on the first day of school. Second years Kageyama and Hinata after practice are worry-free creatures: they don’t believe in homework. The line between lizard pace and springiness is tiptoed as they walk out of Karasuno together, with the extra companionship of Hinata’s bike. Their talk is loud and intense, extinguishing all braincells within a 20-meter radius.

When the boys almost start an all-out brawl over which animal would be the best at volleyball (Kageyama says blue whale— it would cover the team’s entire floor probably, thus being the ultimate defense; Hinata says a tiger with ten arms), Kageyama registers vaguely that this might be a stupid fight to be having.

He also registers, less vaguely, this thought:

_I wish I had known you sooner._

This is maybe not the first time he has an inkling of such sentiment towards this orange teammate of his. It happens when their conversation flows naturally from volleyball to not-volleyball, and Kageyama doesn’t feel like he has to be nice nor rude, but he does feel like he can run his mouth forever.

“You couldn’t even eat the whale afterwards, it’s too big! Now a tiger...”

It happens sometimes when the lunch bell rings and Kageyama doesn’t get up from his seat and understands he’s kind of a loner, and feels like he has to feel weird about it or maybe he does, but then Hinata randomly barrels into Kageyama’s classroom with his friends and his bento to annoy him and Kageyama forgets what he was thinking about.

“Why is that important, dumbass, why would you eat your teammate after it won the game for you, dumbass?”

But it was never spelled out so starkly in his brain like this. _I wish I had known you sooner. Dumbass._

“Like, as a sign of respect. Hey, Kageyama.” Hinata stops walking. Kageyama follows suit without thinking. “We should have met each other waaay before, dontcha think? Like, in kindergarten or something.”

Now Kageyama freezes for real. What the f— but he’s a magician, his mouth is faster than his brain.

“What are you saying? If you wanted to have met sooner then you shouldn’t have sucked at volleyball.” Which makes no sense (granted the bar is low for these two), but Kageyama is still mad at him about that sometimes. “Idiot.”

“Jerk. Agh, I know but, I don’t know, I feel like I would be better at volleybal now if we had met sooner.”

Oh.

“Obviously.” Kageyama pivots and starts a hurried pace again.

“Somehow I hate when you agree with me. In fact, I hate you.” Hinata bounces after him, catching up.

“And I abhorr you.”

“Wow. Tsukishima teach you that one? Sounds awful.” Hinata seems genuinely impressed.

“It was Suga-senpai.”

“Setter favoritism!”

“Normal favoritism. What makes you think we’d be able to stand each other from since kindergarten?” Kageyama sneers down his nose at the other boy.

Hinata flaps a hand at him, “Psht. I wouldn’t care about your crappy personality.”

“Hah?! What if I’m the one who’s not willing to put up with yours?”

“Well, then don’t! We could still be stupid friends.”

Kageyama scowls, confused, “Friends? You said this was for your volleyball. No way, Hinata.”

“Same difference, and seriously! You know, Kageyama, personality ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s shallow as looks. People are more than that.” Hinata puts on a wise look he learned from his Tanaka-senpai.

Kageyama is irritated by how he is intrigued (he is a complicated man), “What are people, then?”

“Hmm. I don’t know if I can explain,”

“Then don’t open your mouth in the first place, genius.”

“Agh, shut up, let me talk!” Hinata taps a finger on his chin, “Okay, take...Tsukishima, for example. He’s like if stinky tofu was a person, right? But did you know I like him?”

The information shocks Kageyama, but perhaps what truly shocks him is that Hinata would tell such a flagrant lie. “You complain about him all the time. And I know he hates you even more.”

“Yeah, yeah, but I think he’s really cool, and actually he likes me.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“I don’t care.” Hinata grins.

Kageyama sighs. Regards Hinata. Okay, he’ll bite. “Why? How can you like _him_?” He says the word like he’s being force-fed a raw onion.

“I was getting there! Well, you see. It’s ‘cause his blocks are wicked cool.”

Kageyama blinks. “And?”

“And what?”

“His blocks are wicked cool, and? That’s it?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“You like him because he’s kinda good at volleyball?” What the hell, Hinata. Kageyama feels like a fool and he should walk out of there without another wor—

“That’s why I like you too.”

Kageyama halts and snatches a handful of orange hair, “I am not ‘KINDA’ GOOD AT VOLLEYBALL—“

“YIKES I KNOW, OKAY, you’re like the most amazing player I’ve ever seen!” Hinata grabs at his wrist.

Tobio’s claw loosens as his brain does an emergency shut down. A gaggle of big, hairy moths, moths of disdain probably, take flight in his stomach, and he wants to retch them in... disappointment.

“Buh...what are you saying...idiot...”

“You look sooo ugly right now. I mean it, though.” Hinata says.

The hand in Hinata’s hair flexes on instinct. Kageyama presses down and lets go.

“Whatever. Hinata. Dumbass. That’s a... really stupid reason to like somebody. It’s just admiration.”

Thanks, really, but is there nothing else for him? Kageyama puts his hands in his jacket pockets and starts walking again.

Hinata watches him, absently petting his abused scalp. Then he jumps on his bike, pedals for 3 seconds, and tries to win the argument again. “Same difference.” He swings down back to the ground.

“Stop saying that, no, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it’s not.”

“You sound like Kenma, _yesitis—_ ”

“Hinata!” They interrupt their walk once more. “If Tsukishima was a literal serial killer, would you still like him because his blocks are good?”

“No,” Hinata hops in exasperation, “I would never admire a person like that! It’s like, it’s like, when I say I admire someone, I mean I see the incredible effort they make despite the talent that’s already there,” his little body works itself into a frenzy, letting the bike topple over to gesticulate with both hands, “the getting up for the 100th time even when they’re so frustrated they could just FWAAAH burn up and die, how their face looks all twinkle-twinkle and dumb when they improve, I swear I’ve seen even Tsukishima look like that in his own way! He looked so dumb, Kageyama! Like—“ Hinata contorts his face to look uncannily like Tsukishima’s normal expression, “— AUGH, and the FFFfeeling of wanting so bad to be good at something that they wanna throw up!” He finishes his flailing rant and pants.

Kageyama can only gawk at him.

“So—“

“A serial killer would never have time for all that!”

The taller teen finally cracks. Breathes in—

“Fu.”

Because it’s so rare, he remembers the times he’s been amused. Hinata was around in most of them.

So obviously Hinata knows that’s a laugh in Kageyama, and smiles, still breathing heavy, “Among other flaws I couldn’t get over. You get it just a little more, Bakageyama? When I find someone like that, even if they’re a—a bastard,” he slaps the other on the back and they guffaw together, “I can’t help but like them.”

Kageyama waits as Hinata picks his bike back up and they resume their walk in unison.

That right there is probably why all the bastards liked Hinata too. Who knows, maybe even Tsukishima that giraffian scoundrel. Kageyama’s snickers fade. He makes a turn and Hinata follows.

“Ugh...no, I still don’t get it, Hinata. You’re a giant weirdo.”

“Kageyamaaa!” Hinata goes for a kick in the shin.

Kageyama dodges. “Miss. But. I guess I get that you get it.”

Did Kageyama himself like Hinata? Could he look past his dumbassery and complex annoyingness, and find things he admired?

The boy didn’t even seem to care if people liked him back. When Kageyama looked past Hinata’s dumbassery and complex annoyingness, he saw...the strangest person he ever met.

_I wish I had known you sooner._

It was Hinata’s turn to huff a laugh.

“You don’t have to think too hard on it, stupid. Those are just a few reasons to like someone beyond their personality, even if they’re already nice. There’s tons of others. You’re not nice, Kageyama. You’re good at volleyball. There’s tons of other reasons to like you too.” He grins.

“W-what?” Kageyama clears his throat, glares at his moving feet. “I don’t care. Whatever, I’m thinking ‘bout something else.”

“Oh, tell me.”

“Do you think I like you?”

“Pfft, what kinda question, I can’t tell you that.” Hinata chuckles.

“I’m not asking you to tell me, I’m asking your opinion. You have one. Like how do you think you know that bastard Tsukishima likes you?”

“Oi! Quit it with the ‘think’. When that bastard likes me— ‘cuz it’s not all the time you see, I guess that’s just the deal you get with me— I mean, there are times when I’m sure he likes me. Like when I say something and he does this face as if he’ll punch himself if he laughs. He’s so stupid. I don’t laugh at anything he says either, I won’t lose.”

“The hell. How do you know he’s not just holding back from punching you.“

Hinata shrugs for an answer.

“I was the only one he talked to during training camp, you know? Like, really talked to.” He says, almost musing.

Kageyama smirks, “I bet it was only tra—“

“Mostly trash talk, true. But oh, he’s an artist.” Hinata scoffs, “He insults me, but it’s like he hides little questions about me, and tells me little things about him. Like a secret agent.” He lets the other digest this. His bike goes klak-klak-klak beside him.

Kageyama is puzzled by that. He can’t picture these two having a normal conversation to save their lives. “Like how?”

Hinata strokes his air beard. “Like...at the end of training he’d go,” he puts on his Tsuki-face and Tsuki-voice (Kageyama is reflexively disgusted), “ _‘Ahh another hard day in the life of the dwarf ball boy. He hasn’t got much to live. Better make the most of it by climbing up a mountain in the snow because he’s stupid. No you can’t stay with me. What, you got nobody waiting for you in the hobbit hole? Oh, yeah, who? A baby sister? How old? Bet she’s already disappointed in you._ ’”

“Is that how you talk when you like someone?”

“Only if you’re Tsukishima to me. He’s terrible, right? So I return the favor. Otherwise, he wouldn’t try to bother me. Hey, maybe he does it to you.”

Kageyama wants to spit at the mere notion, “That prick hates me too.”

“Aw. Anyway, then, after _hours_ , he’d go ‘ _what if you do disappoint her, what then? You’re building up this stupid sport to be so incredible, it’s everything to you. What if she gets really into it, becomes so invested in you, but you don’t get better, huh? What if she starts to play and surpasses you? That’d be funny_ ,’ And I was like, _‘The heck, I’m gonna sell her if she does that! No way I’ll lose_.’ And then he does the face, you know.” Hinata looks musing again. “We talked about his brother then. He seems like a really swell dude.”

Kageyama processes. Hinata says all that, but something still feels like it’s missing.

“And you think you’re friends because of that?”

Hinata pauses for just a second, blinks, then resumes walking. “Umm well, I guess it doesn’t sound like much, huh? There’s also...agh but it’s embarrassing. Sometimes, when I was getting everyone’s water, I shook his bottle so it would taste weird or I’d drop it in front of him. But sometimes I filled it last after all the others so it would be colder. One time he threw a towel around my face and PULLED like I was one of Santa’s reindeers and I thought he was strangling me but he was saving me from one of Goshiki’s spikes. It’s kind of like that.”

Well, that seemed...alright. Not bosom buddies, but not...not-friends either. If Kageyama was honest, the idea made his heart clench, but he’d need some stroke of genius to explain that.

“Fine, whatever. What about me?”

Hinata tilts his head and looks at him for a long time. A grin slowly forms in his small face.

“Gross,” Kageyama comments.

Hinata ignores him. “You definitely don’t dislike me, Kageyama.”

He narrows his eyes, “Why? How?”

“Ehh, you don’t have to look so skeptic. When I said we should have met before, you made that face like, like an I-accidentally-agree-with-Hinata-and-am-gonna-act-like-I-don’t face.”

Kageyama’s eyes bug out, “A _what_ — you and your faces—“

“It’s true, I saw it! Look, there it is!” Hinata points like a child.

Kageyama slaps his finger away, “You’re too short to see up here—“

“Say we’re friends!”

“We’re not!”

“Say we’re friends, Uglyama! Say we’re stupid friends!” Hinata rears up and bumps his bike repeatedly at Kageyama’s butt to Kageyama’s shouts of ‘NO. NO.’

“Shut up, Hinata dumbass!” “HINATA DUMBASS,” Hinata yells in unison, right inside the other’s ear canal.

He dodges Kageyama’s signature face grab, Matrix-style, and smiles impishly again. “Fine. But you’re my friend, Kageyama. And my partner. And my nemesis. You’re my favorite person to spend time with!”

“Buh. N-not mutual. Moron.” Kageyama speedwalks.

“If you need anything,” Hinata flies to his side and shoves a thumb proudly in his own chest, “you can count on me!”

“Then shut up.”

 _So that's how it is_ , Kageyama thinks. He slows down.

“Hate you. Hey, this your homebase?” Hinata stops a ways away and looks around.

“Yup.” Kageyama fishes his keys from his backpack.

The shorter boy sniffs.

“Ah...AAAH no way, no WAY, my turn was TEN minutes ago! I’m gonna be so late,” Hinata messes his hair and drags his hand down his face, “my mom’s gonna KILL me, throw me out, then the mountain demon is gonna eat me-hee-heee…”

Kageyama could not be more indifferent, goes to unlock the narrow front gates of his house. “Moutain demons don’t exist, dumbass. They’re like wolves.”

Hinata pauses his fretting to stare at the back of his friend’s head. “Huh.” Blinks, looks up at the darkening sky. “Well, I gotta run. You should google wolves. See ya—”

“Oi, look at this.” Kageyama stands with one hand on the open gate, gazing fixedly in.

“What, what is it? Don’t spook me man, I got an orange belt—“

“Just come!”

Hinata trembles a bit as he walks to stand beside him. His bike jingles in the sudden quiet. He glances at his taller friend, who is very still, as if caught in a trance, and sweats. Then he squints out at the Kageyama’s lovely shrubbery.

“Wha—OI!“ Kageyama slams a hand on Hinata’s back and spikes him in like one of his serves.

He nearly absorbs the ground as Kageyama calmly enters behind him, like some dignified estate lord. When he turns to lock the gates he knows Hinata is poking his tongue out at his back.

Hinata huffs. “I won’t wash your dishes! And I wanna sleep outside.” He declares.

Kageyama turns, grabs the top of Hinata’s head and twists him around, then marches him up to the front steps. “Whatever. First to sleep gets five hundred spikes to the face tomorrow.”

“SIX HUNDRED SPIKES!” Hinata lays his honor and his bike down on the grass and they sit on the porch.

_I wish I had known you sooner._

_You’re my favorite person to spend time with_.

They only have two more years (minus one day minus weekends) of seeing each other every day. And then, because they are in different classes again, they only actually hang out for a few hours on a normal day. Hinata wouldn’t always forget his exit to the mountain. Kageyama realizes he’s staring at his sneakers and gets moving.

For a blessed moment, there is only the tranquil sound of rustling leaves between the two boys as they take their shoes off. Kageyama feels like they’ve done this a thousand times at each other’s houses, but it’s the first. For some dumb reason, he remembers this day for the rest of his life. The crickets start their nightsong.

“Say we’re friends.”

“NO!”

**Author's Note:**

> heyy thanks for reading this is my first thing for hq!!  
> if you like it let me know  
> if you hate it, please call me


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